


les autres

by Raven (singlecrow)



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-27
Updated: 2011-06-27
Packaged: 2017-10-20 18:35:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/215869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singlecrow/pseuds/Raven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A late night, a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	les autres

The network changeover is a great relief to everyone concerned, of course, and Dana thinks it's for the best that the show's now in the hands of someone who cares about sports. Everything is going to be fine. She tells this to Dan, happily, and he responds with, "Dana, are you drunk-" - and then there's a clatter like he's dropped the phone and she doesn't understand it at all.

"Isn't it great that everything's going to be fine?"

"Yeah, it's great," Dan mutters. "Dana, it's two am."

"You were asleep?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"I was enjoying sleeping like a normal person," Dan goes on, but now he sounds awake. "You know. Normal people. Who sleep at two am."

"Danny, come out with me," Dana says impulsively. "There's a jazz bar on 32nd that's open till four."

"Dana, stop being crazy."

"I'm not being crazy. This is perfectly normal for me."

"Yeah, isn't that reassuring." Dan sighs. "Take Natalie. Or Casey."

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"They'll be sleeping."

"Dana!"

"I'll be outside your building in twenty minutes," she says, and hangs up on him.

By the time they get there, they're the last people in the bar. A young couple drift out, tipsily, into the dark as they reach the door, and then they order a couple of drinks and have the place to themselves. The bartender polishes glasses. The sounds of the city are muted, comforting, Dana thinks. Dan's leaning on one elbow, looking at her. "Dana," he says after a moment, "what am I doing here?"

"You're with me," she says, lightly.

"And why are we here?" His tone is one of mild inquiry. He's not being sardonic, she realises. He wants to know.

"I can't sleep, Danny," she says, suddenly emphatic. "I can't. The show comes back on the air in three days..."

"And you're supposed to be resting," he reminds her. "It's been a hard couple of months, the week off for everybody was a good idea..."

"Yeah," she says, fretfully. "Yeah. A week off. A good idea. I can't sleep. I can't go to bed before 2 am any more. Like a normal person," she adds, pointedly. "I'm _not_ a normal person."

"Never a truer word spoken." When she glares at him, he stares straight back. "I never said you had to be, Dana. No one ever said you had to be."

She twirls her hair and looks at him. "I want another drink."

He gets it for her, and when he walks down to the table with it, she's moved to the small upright piano in the corner of the room, looking down at it, reflectively. "Do you play?" he asks.

She shakes her head. "Not at all. I'm tone deaf."

He laughs and sits down beside her. Slowly, his fingers pick out a melody. The Moonlight Sonata, she realises. "Without the bass part," he says. "I haven't played since I was a kid."

"It's nice," she says, meaning it. The piano is an old honky-tonk and out of tune in places, but somehow it works, the melody letting her drift but the dissonance holding her close, safe in this crappy bar, in this crazy city.

Dan plays another few bars, then stops, then starts again. He's smiling a little, picking up confidence so now he's not looking at the keys, staring out through the window at the blur of traffic and rain. Dana follows his gaze outside, then back into the bar, the nicotine-stained ceiling, the deserted bar. It all feels strange, unreal. "I can't sleep before this time," she says again. "Not before West Coast Update has gone off air as well, not until..."

She trails off. He lifts his hands from the keys. "It's okay."

"Did you really want to leave New York?" she asks, suddenly. "Were you going to leave, if the show hadn't..."

Dan considers. "Was I going to? Yeah, sure. Did I want to? That's a different question."

She gets it. She stands up, starts to pace up and down next to the piano. "Good thing we didn't have to go be other people," she says. "I don't know how."

"Me neither," he says, smiling a little. They sit there, quietly. The bartender goes on polishing glasses.

After a while, she asks: "Will you teach me how to play?"

He grins, and doesn't say no, or that if she wants lessons she should go to a real teacher, or even that he hasn't played in years, himself. He takes her hand and shows her, finger by finger, note by note, how to pick out the tune. It's sonorous, and discordant, and sometimes it's just right and sometimes she has to do her best with mistakes.

"Like live television," she says, thoughtfully.

Dan laughs. "You make no sense, Dana," he says, and stays with her.


End file.
